Producer: Domaine Daniel Sage

Éric Bernardin

Where?

Daniel Sage, both a winegrower and a wine merchant, finds himself at the crossroads of countries, between the Rhône Valley, the Ardèche where his vineyards are located, the Haute-Loire where he lives, and the Loire where his winery is located. Originally from the suburbs of Lyon but having spent part of his adolescence in Saint-Étienne, Daniel first earned a professional certificate in sheet metal work, then worked in several professions and led several lives. One day, however, his true passion for wine (and particularly for natural wine) took over. He sold wines for a while before switching to viticulture, with the help of winegrower friends. In 2011, he settled in Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue, south of Mont Pilat, in a former industrial building. He cultivated his small estate in northern Ardèche, and soon demonstrated his true talent as a winemaker. Within three years, he had become a cult winemaker thanks to the excellence of his wines, produced without sulfur or any other oenological products. Alongside his vineyard, he purchased and vinified grapes from other winegrowers further south, in Villeneuve-de-Berg and Valvignères.

Terroir, plots, and grape varieties

Daniel cultivates three hectares of vines in Bogy, near Annonay, in northern Ardèche. The soils are predominantly granite with migmatites (granitized gneiss) and sand resulting from the decomposition of these rocks. This type of terroir is more closely related to the northern Rhône Valley than to the Ardèche vineyards themselves, which are concentrated on limestone soils in the south of the department. It is therefore not surprising that Daniel's grape varieties are those of the Côtes du Rhône Nord: Gamay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, and Viognier. However, as a wine merchant, he also vinifies grapes grown in the south of the department, on marl-limestone soils not far from Montélimar, which brings a more southern nuance to some of his vintages. Moreover, a great tester before the Lord, he does not hesitate to plant a Jura grape variety (Poulsard) in the Rhône region and to revive local varieties such as Couston.

Cultivation Methods

Since the beginning of his winemaking business, Daniel has worked the vineyard without synthetic chemicals or additives, except for a little natural copper and sulfur. The terroirs in the northern Rhône Valley, with their steep profiles, are difficult to mechanize; the vines are worked by horse. The harvest is entirely manual.

Vinification

Whether from Daniel's own harvest or that of other winegrowers, the grapes are all organic and vinified at his winery in Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue, without chemical additives, without sulfur, and using natural yeasts. An experimenter at heart, Daniel practices skin maceration, plot selection, single-varietal wines, and blends, and creates numerous microcuvées.

The Wines

Although relatively new to the winemaking world, Daniel Sage makes wines bursting with vitality and energy: cult bottles that are sought after, coveted, and fought over. Their rarity stems from the fact that he produces many microcuvées from small plots, so they should be snapped up as soon as they appear. This is the case with the Grange Bara cuvée, a Marsanne-Roussanne maceration that garners widespread acclaim, or Nyctalopia, a Gamay-Pinot Noir blend where fresh red fruit and spices reveal an elegant graphite note. The labels of his wines reproduce works by the Belgian artist Jean Raine, who died in 1986 and of whom he was a passionate admirer. Mortgage Abolished, A Song of Love, A Useless Journey, and Adam Against Beefsteak were titles of paintings before becoming names of vintages.